Moment of Impact
by Psyched
Summary: Kensi discovers the identity of the mole. Speculation on what takes place while all hell is breaking loose, possibly during Hot Water (8x13). Based on spoilers.


**Spoilers:** Anything floating around out there regarding the upcoming mole arc (episodes 8x13, 8x14, and 8x15, I believe).

 **Disclaimer:** Not mine, not making any money from this.

* * *

I take another sip of coffee, needing both the caffeine and the sugar to get me through the night. How can it be cold already when I just poured it five minutes ago? Glancing at the clock in the corner of my laptop screen, I see that more like thirty minutes have passed since I returned to my desk.

While time is flying for me, I have a feeling it's dragging for Deeks, Sam, and Callen. All three are spending another night in jail. All three were denied bail because they are accused of murder. All three will be transported to various facilities soon, to await trial, unless those of us who are still free can figure something out.

"New" evidence was found in our house that convinced IA to re-open their investigation into Francis Boyle's murder, with Deeks again their main suspect. A dead body was found in Sam's trunk and one in Callen's house. The mole has been busy and is trying to get us all out of the way for good, it seems.

The first thing Nell and Eric were tasked with doing was investigating Anna. She's been spending time a lot of time at Callen's place lately and would have easily been able to plant a body or kill someone there. So far, she's clean, which is a relief, because we can really use the help here. Not to mention in the field when the time comes.

I'm not officially cleared for fieldwork yet, at least not physically, but Hetty's got another think coming if she believes for a second that she can stop me from doing what I need to do to help my team.

Currently I'm flipping through recent surveillance photos of one Kurt Sullivan, who, as it turns out, did not return to his unit in the Middle East after he dropped by unannounced to say goodbye. In fact, that visit was probably when he stashed the evidence that landed Deeks back in jail. But I really can't think about that now, because my hatred of the man for endangering Deeks like that will distract me from my task: figure out who Sullivan is working for.

After the guys were arrested, in addition to looking into Anna, we immediately started to scrutinize the backgrounds and recent whereabouts of all of the people who have been through Deeks' and my house since we bought it: painters, movers, delivery men. Even my mother and Julia were on the list. And Sullivan. Like our moms, I put his name there as just a formality. Another i to dot and t to cross.

I hadn't suspected a thing. I was stunned when Eric told me he was still in the LA area and had never even tried to rejoin his unit. Why would he have lied about that, unless he is somehow involved with the attempt destroy us all and bring down OSP? But he isn't the mole. No, he's just another pawn, like Carl Brown.

Thank God Nate's back in town, and is helping me maintain an even keel about this for the moment. He keeps reminding me it's doing my team no good to allow my mind to wander back to all the time I spent with Sullivan in rehab, trading insults and pushing myself to beat him at anything and everything. Deeks had appreciated his help so much, he'd invited Sullivan over for dinner one evening not long after I came home.

Which was probably the whole point of his charade. Why else would he be assigned to me if not to find out where we live? I wasn't even an active member of the team at the time, and there was no way to know if I ever would be again. But our address is too new to have been included in any leaked information. So no real benefit in befriending me unless it was to gain access to Deeks.

Damnit!

Who else that we trusted and thought we knew could be involved in this? That's what I'm trying to find out. By following Sullivan twenty-four seven and bugging his phone, we hope to figure out who his contact is. Who our ultimate betrayer is.

Nell is upstairs listening to the audio from his phone calls. I turn my attention back to my laptop, to the photos of Sullivan as he went through his day yesterday. He started out at the gym, then stopped for gas on the way home.

My attention is drawn away again, but this time it's external, not internal. Hetty is approaching. She must be under more stress than I can imagine if I can hear her footfalls in advance of her arrival.

"Anything, Ms. Blye?" she asks.

I shake my head. "You?"

"A little good news, finally. Ms. Kolcheck will be joining us shortly. She has been cleared by Mr. Beale and Ms. Jones, and will be an asset to our work here. Please send her up to ops when she arrives."

I nod and look down at my screen again. There is no time for the pleasantries of conversation or attempts at reassurance. Best to get back to work.

I get lost in the minutia of each picture, needing to be sure there is no one I recognize in any shot. Meeting in a large group of people is the safest way if you have to meet in public, because it's a bitch on this end of things. It takes a lot of time to blow up and look at every face in every inch of every frame. I silently thank the brilliant minds that created Kaleidoscope, but that particular tool isn't of any help to us now, since we don't know who we're looking for.

And even if Sullivan hasn't made his tail, he clearly assumes he has an audience, as he sticks to very public places. After spending about an hour at home, he decided to stroll the more touristy streets in Venice Beach to window shop. Looking at these pictures, I can almost hear him gloat about how much time he's having me waste. "Dick," I mutter.

"I'm sorry?" I hear, in Anna's heavily accented English.

I look up and see Callen's girlfriend and my new teammate standing in front of my desk. I didn't hear her approach. I offer her a brief smile and an even briefer explanation, "Not you. Hetty wants you up on ops."

She nods and heads toward the stairs as I roll my neck and stand up to stretch my fatiguing muscles.

Eventually, I sit back down and see that Sullivan gave his followers a break and stopped at a café. He didn't make it too easy; he took a table inside instead of outside. He was only there for about fifteen minutes though.

Whoever the surveillance team is, they're good. Just like at the gym and gas station earlier in the day, one stuck with Sullivan while the other hung back and shot images of anyone who entered or left each location for the next twenty minutes or so. It's making me bleary eyed, but better more information than less, in theory.

Suddenly my vison sharpens, my pulse races, and my breath gets caught in my throat. "Son of a _bitch_ ," I say, scanning the immediate area to see who I can get to confirm what I'm looking at. An image that will be seared into my brain until the day I die. Along with the stabbing pain to my heart.

I allow myself a moment to disbelieve it. Another to grieve. And a last to let the seething rage return and reenergize me. If I thought I was furious at learning Sullivan was an operative, that every word he said was nothing more than a means to an end, it doesn't compare to what I feel right now. I'm not sure there's a word strong enough.

As I hit some keys to send the photo to ops, I let memories wash over me, both distant and recent, and search them for clues. Something.

Nothing. That's what I find. Nothing that should have caused my well-trained and finely-tuned senses to tingle.

I take the stairs two at a time, and it doesn't escape me that just a few months ago I could barely walk. Part of me wishes I were still incapable of being here. Then I wouldn't be the one to deliver the news. I wouldn't have to watch their faces as they come to the same realization I just did. That even though this makes no sense, it explains everything.

The doors swish open and everyone looks at me. I hadn't realized Assistant Director Granger was here too, though I don't know where else he would have been, even in the middle of the night.

"I got him," I say calmly. No excitement here.

"Who?" Granger asks.

"The mole."

"Well I didn't think you meant Santa Claus, Blye. Who is it?"

I look at them, one at a time. Anna, the least affected, seems only curious. I can see that Eric is afraid to hear what I have to say; everyone is his friend and this will be hardest for him to accept. Nell is putting on a brave face and looks anxious to know the truth. She has no idea how much this will hurt. Granger is ready for this to be over. I probably won't be able to read much in his expression when he makes the connection, but I might get a hint of emotion in his voice. Hetty looks resigned as she braces herself for the impact. She knows me well enough to understand this is bad. I want to suggest she sit down first, but I don't.

"I sent a picture to Nell. It's probably best if you all see it."

As Nell turns to her keyboard, I continue, "This picture was taken approximately twelve minutes after Kurt Sullivan left a café in Venice Beach late yesterday afternoon."

The image appears on the screen. Except for my voice it had already been quiet, as quiet as it could be in a room with dozens of hard drives and their fans whirring like lazy cicadas. But I swear even those go silent and I feel the oxygen being sucked out of the room as every single one of us inhales but can't exhale.

On the giant screen, big as life, is a heavily bearded man, his long dirty blonde hair snaking out from under his baseball cap. He's wearing running shorts and a sweat-stained t-shirt. He's dressed differently than we're used to seeing him, and has obviously become skilled at disguising himself; neither the beard or the hair are his. But he can't hide his height, and there's no way we don't all recognize his visible facial features. We all know who this is: Nate.

Again, I study my colleagues and bosses, knowing their thoughts probably run parallel to my own. How did this happen? How did we not see it? How could Nate have such animosity toward us that he would jeopardize our lives like this? Why would he betray his country? And the one I want answered the most: When? When had he become a traitor? Was every word he ever spoke to us part of a long con? Is Nate Getz a better operator than all of us?

We weren't ready to believe Nate had turned double-agent last spring. I remember Callen telling us about his time with Nate and the arms-runner in the warehouse, right before she waterboarded him. Nate had said we'd made a mistake in trusting him. Apparently truer words had never been spoken by our operational psychologist.

I wonder now, what was real point of that exercise? For Nate to see how far he could go and not lose our faith? To find out what he could do and have us still believe it was part of his undercover role? Or was it nothing more than a dry run for this betrayal?

However, the discovery of Nate as the mole also answers some questions, for me at least. Ones I didn't even know I had until I learned the truth about Sullivan. Now I know why he tried to be "disarming with a touch of charm," as Sullivan described himself that first day. If I hadn't been so down on myself and my slow progress I might have recognized that same phrase could have been used to describe Deeks. I realize now it probably was. I imagine Nate giving Sullivan tips on how to best play me, telling him how Deeks worked his way under my defenses years ago. Bastard.

And that description Sullivan gave of Deeks, supposedly based on my behavior and attitude and his alleged "years in PSYOPS." No way he could have pegged Deeks as "fit but thin, more cute than manly, some sort of a cross between a beach-boy surfer and a terrier" if he hadn't been fully briefed, including photos. Again, something that should have rung a warning bell in my head.

I'm sure that in the days and weeks to come, we'll all have plenty of "I should have" and "Why didn't I?" moments when it comes to our past experiences with Nate. I can see them even now running through the heads of everyone in the room, save Anna, who doesn't know our operational psychologist like we do. Like we thought we did.

Hetty breaks us out of our thoughts before they can take us down too dark a path. She looks like she's aged ten years in the last ten seconds. "It seems we have our work cut out for us." It's impossible for me to read her expression. Defeated, maybe. Certainly saddened and upset. I find myself wondering who she's more disappointed in, Nate or herself?

She assigns me, Nell, and Anna to locate and bring in Nate. The surveillance team will be ordered to arrest Sullivan. Hetty and Granger want to be at the boatshed before anyone is interrogated.

As the three of us head down the stairs, I hear Deeks in my head making comments about _Charlie's Angels_. It occurs to me that Hetty just sent me out into the field. No questions or concerns about my skills or abilities. I almost laugh at the irony that when he came back into town last week, one of Nate's tasks was to assess my mental and emotional readiness to return to fieldwork. We'd talked quite a bit and he cleared me. Now he is my first target.

I stop and turn to Anna and Nell as I reach the last step. We've never worked together in the field, all of us. But I trust them. _Just like you trusted Nate_ , my inner voice condemns.

Anna speaks before I get the chance. "I'm sorry that the mole turned out to be someone you are all so close to."

Nell replies with a quiet, "Yeah, thanks."

I remind them, "We take him down like anyone else." I pause for a second, trying to decide how to phrase my request. "I need a favor or two."

Nell says, "Sure thing, Kens," while Anna simply arches an eyebrow.

"First, I want five minutes alone with Sullivan at some point." I need to give him the ass-kicking I promised when we met.

They know why I'm asking, and Anna says, "Not a problem. We can tag in when you're ready."

I smile, "Thanks, but it won't be necessary. You can both sit ringside if you want, though."

"What's the second favor?" Nell asks.

My smile disappears. "Don't leave me alone with Nate."

Nell looks a little confused. "You worried he's going to try to play mind games with you?"

"No," I take a breath before continuing and look them both in the eye. I've never been more serious in my life. "I'm afraid I'll kill him."

With that I turn back around and head toward the exit. "Let's go end this so we can get the rest of our team back."

Individually, I know we'll all be devastated in the days to come by the realization of exactly what it means that Nate Getz, teammate, friend, and confidant has betrayed us so completely and cruelly.

I also know we'll help each other through it. It's what we do.

* * *

 **AN** : At this point, this is a one-shot and is marked complete. I reserve the right to expand on it, depending on what we see on the show and what my muses demand of me. And because it's on the short side (for me), I thought I'd try my hand at a couple of different things, style-wise. Hope the present tense and first-person perspective weren't too distracting.


End file.
